The Butler and the Firewall
by Omnicat
Summary: "I knew a program called Jarvis once." "A friend of yours, sir?" "He was a back-stabbing, boot-licking, unprincipled data-pusher who abandoned his User and got exactly what was coming to him," Tron said. "I'm sorry, sir. I hope you won't hold the memory of this person against me," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. LoraB heaved a weary sigh. "Tron, honey, we talked about this. 'Tact', remember?"


**Title:** The Butler and the Firewall

**Author:** Omnicat

**Unofficially Adapted From:** Jon Favreau & co's _Iron Man_ and _Iron Man 2_, Shane Black & co's _Iron Man 3_, Steven Lisberger & co's _Tron_, and Joseph Kosinksi & co's _Tron: Legacy_.

**Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** All of the above, though nothing specific.

**Warnings:** Violence.

**Characters & Pairings:** Tron & J.A.R.V.I.S. & Tony & Lora

**Summary:** "I knew a program called Jarvis once." "A friend of yours, sir?" "He was a back-stabbing, boot-licking, unprincipled data-pusher who abandoned his User and got exactly what was coming to him," Tron said. "I'm sorry, sir. I hope you won't hold the memory of this person against me," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. LoraB heaved a weary sigh. "Tron, honey, we talked about this. _'Tact'_, remember?"

**Author's Note:** A pair of loose excerpts from a Tron/MCU crossover epic that will never come to fruition. Woe, alas, et cetera. The context here is that at some point post-_Legacy_, the secret of the ISOs and what Lora's laser can do falls into the wrong hands, and Alan is kidnapped for it. So Lora hauls Tron out of the computer to help save him, and along the way they run into one or more of the Earth-dwelling Avengers. I was inspired to write these particular snippets down despite my utter inability to write the epic multichapter of my dreams because tumblr assaulted me with program feels.

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**The Butler and the Firewall**

LoraB and Tony were still talking, the subject of the conversation having shifted to User things Tron neither any idea about nor any patience to try and figure out, and they seemed to have forgotten about him entirely. He took the opportunity to study the interior of Tony's quarters. It almost reminded him of home. It didn't hold even a quarter of the clutter LoraB and Alan-1's residence did. Streamlined, simplistic design, smooth surfaces, dimmed light and a liquid energy fountain smack dab in the center of the house, between one set of stairs and the other.

If that wasn't the most sensible and comfortingly familiar sight he'd seen all day, Tron would eat a shoe. (They couldn't possibly go down any worse than the 'sandwiches' had.)

He looked around for glasses, found none, and cupped his hands in the stream instead. A smile tugged at his lips. Just like the old days.

He was just about to take his first sip when –

"That water is not for drinking, sir," a voice from nowhere said.

Tron did not jump. Not even a little. Absolutely not.

LoraB and Tony looked up and shared an indulgent glance.

"God, Tron, we can't take you anywhere," Tony said.

The disembodied voice spoke again. "If you are thirsty, I can direct you to the kitchen. We have a selection of both warm and cold beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic."

"Alcohol?" Lora pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sounds good. I could use a nightcap or two."

"Who is this?" Tron demanded, scanning every corner of the room. Judging from the Users' response it obviously it wasn't anyone suspicious, but that didn't make their invisibility _pleasant_.

"_That_," said Tony. "is _my_ artificial intelligence system. He's in charge of housekeeping. J.A.R.V.I.S., grab a suit and come up here. I will not tolerate two AIs under the same roof without having them shake literal hands. Where's my camera? This is a kodak moment."

"My visual sensors are vigilant as ever, sir," the voice said.

A grin broke out on Tron's face. "You're the program I heard about!" And then it dimmed. "And your name is Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir. It is an acronym standing for 'Just A Rather Very Intelligent System'."

"I knew a program called Jarvis once."

"A friend of yours, sir?"

"He was a back-stabbing, boot-licking, unprincipled data-pusher who abandoned his User and got exactly what was coming to him," Tron said.

"I'm sorry, sir. I hope you won't hold the memory of this person against me," J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

LoraB heaved a weary sigh. "Tron, honey, we talked about this. I called it _'tact'_, remember?"

He did. And he cared as little for it now as he had when she explained it to him. Or the several dozen times Flynn had tried to do the same over twenty years ago. But LoraB looked so drained and miserable, and so much like _Yori_, that Tron couldn't help but feel a little guilty.

"But he was the only friend I had for a long time," he amended quickly. "Just as long as the SysAdmin wasn't around to see it."

J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice came from behind him this time, accompanied by a rhytmic _clang,_ _clang, clang_-ing. "You might be comforted to know that I have no system administrator to report to, sir. Only Master Tony."

Tron turned and came face to face with a tall, broad man in full-body armour in gaudy gold and red.

"Tron, J.A.R.V.I.S.. J.A.R.V.I.S., Tron. J.A.R.V.I.S. is remote operating the empty Mark 42 Iron Man armour, like a digital runway model. Tron is _the_ Tron, made of code hailing all the way from '82 tucked in a flesh-and-blood body designed by a laser and the equally outdated calculator operating it," Tony said, holding up his hands with his fingers held in an odd rectangle shape. "And they're both standing right here in my living room. It's like living in the future. Smile!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. I've heard so much about you."

J.A.R.V.I.S. held out a hand. Tron shook it.

"I'd never heard of you before today, but the feeling is mutual."

"It looks so delicate up close," Lora said with a frown.

Tony looked shocked. "_Delicate?_ Whadaya – well, okay, it does, doesn't it. I mean, just a little. It's a highly advanced and intricate piece of machinery, but I don't kick robot and terrorist ass to the curb by being gentle with it. I'd have J.A.R.V.I.S. give a demonstration but I'm not sure your boy Tron would survive."

Tron raised an eyebrow. "Wanna test that?"

"No." Lora rolled her eyes. "We came here to figure out how to get Alan back, not to have a PEBCAK-measuring contest."

**I-oOo-I**

Dust and smoke made static of the air, and overpowering, acrid smells (smells, when would he finally get used to this world's _smells_) assaulted Tron's nose. Every breath was like a knife, a rhythm of pain out of synch with the one beating in his skull and twenty other points in his body. His graphics were distorted, swimming and swaying, in ways the contaminated atmosphere couldn't account for. The sound of sirens and explosions was faint beyond the piercing beep in his ears.

He reached for the source point of the fiercest pain, braced for the flaring agony of exposed voxels, but though it hurt like a glitch, the back of his head wasn't missing any chunks at all.

His hand came back red and sticky instead.

Tron stared at it, dazed.

Blood.

He wasn't losing resolution, he was _bleeding_. Like a User.

His vision darkened, and before he could wrestle through his disrupted mental scripts to remember that light in this world came from above, a hard hand wrapped around his throat and hauled him upright.

J.A.R.V.I.S. stared at him through the eyes of the Mark 42, the lights in the eye slits flickering. "I'm v-very sorry-y-yyyyy, sir, it ap-p-pears I am being – _bzzt_ – hacke-_zzz_ –"

Tron wrapped his fingers around the metal glove just as it started closing around his windpipe. The strain of opposing forces hurt his hands and made the suit's joints creak.

"Don't – do this –" Tron managed to croak.

J.A.R.V.I.S. raised his other hand, repulsor first.

With a burst of strength he could not have explained the source of, Tron twisted his battered body up and around, locked his legs around the Mark 42's head, shifted the grip of his hands from the suit's fingers to the wrist, and _janked_. It worked – a little too well. His throat was free and the entire forearm of the suit dislodged, sending Tron tumbling backwards off of its shoulders. His head and hands and knees banged into the floor, but by now the pain barely registered.

Finding and bracing his feet on the rubble-strewn ground, he leapt aside just as J.A.R.V.I.S. twisted around and fired at him. He ducked behind a couch for cover – it disappeared in an explosion of fluff and splinters – he overturned a table in passing and a third blast showered him in shards of glass.

He wanted his discs back more than ever.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., you have to fight this!" Tron shouted over the ruckus. He reached the shelter of a wall, stone, solid. "Whoever they are, throw them out! Derezz _them_, not me!"

A repulsor blast shook the wall. But it held. For now. Tron looked frantically around the room he'd found himself in.

"You're the best system Tony ever wrote, J.A.R.V.I.S.," he jelled, darting for the weapon he'd spotted. "Don't let a bunch of half-coded hacking programs get the better of you."

Another shot sent cracks lashing through the wall. Then two more, further from the door Tron had ducked through. And another, in the far corner.

"Attacks on my system –" J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice was thick with static and glitches. "– multiple – coordinated – can't –"

"Get it together, JAR–"

The next volley of shots blew the entire wall inward. Tron barely managed to dodge a slab of collapsing ceiling.

No such luck with the rock that cracked his spine.

For several long moments, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He couldn't remember falling on his belly and losing the length of steel in his hand.

Then he heard the whine of a repulsor charge building –

"Remember... who wrote you..." he gasped.

– building – building...

Holding?

Tron panted, rapid and shallow, blinked dust and moisture and hair from his eyes. A million pinpricks of pain suffused his body. "Remember your User, J.A.R.V.I.S.. Tony. Remember your _father_."

_Alan-1, please let him –_

The whine of the repulsor died away.

J.A.R.V.I.S. kicked him across the room.

"Override – override –" J.A.R.V.I.S. said, before his voice gave way to garbled static.

_Thunk, thunk, thunk._ The heavy metal feet advanced on Tron as he tried to gather his wits. He opened his eyes. J.A.R.V.I.S. brought a boot down on him.

Every nerve in his strange, bleeding, hurting User body protested, but Tron forced it to obey. Over fifteen hundred cycles of combat experience would not bow to a cumbersome bag of flesh. He deflected the boot from his throat and pulled himself up by the edges of the armor. If he couldn't evade or find a weapon, he'd just have to wrestle the ones J.A.R.V.I.S. had away from him.

J.A.R.V.I.S. was still producing barely discenernable words. _"Run... run... run!"_

"No," Tron told him. "Fight!"

And that's what he did. Dodging, punching, parrying, pulling. He tripped over the metal pole he'd dropped and thrust it with such force the entire suit fell apart.

It reassembled.

"You can't give in to them," he said, stabbing at the hip joint. "You have to beat them or die trying."

J.A.R.V.I.S. backhanded him; he bounced off of a wall, spun with his momentum and kicked the suit in the chest so hard the arc reactor itself flickered. When J.A.R.V.I.S. next landed a kick on _him_, Tron was fairly sure he heard something inside of him crack.

Funny. He thought User bodies didn't shatter.

And then the metal hand was around his throat again, and they were back to where they'd started. But this time J.A.R.V.I.S. pinned him to the wall with his other hand pressed to his stomach, the impotent repulsor scalding his skin (and imporent for how long?), not a nanometer to give.

"Don't be like that other Jarvis," Tron rasped when black spots started to mar his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't become what _I_ was. Don't do that to your User... and your friends..."

What felt like a cycle of darkness later, the pressure on his throat eased. He sucked in lungful after lungful of air, felt himself slump against an armoured shoulder and an arm wrap around his back to hold him up.

"Intruders deleted and not coming back," J.A.R.V.I.S. said, calm and crystal clear.

Tron swallowed. "You sure?"

"My 'scorched motherboard' protocol is very thorough."

Gently but firmly, Tron extricated himself from J.A.R.V.I.S.'s grip. And promptly collapsed in a little heap against the wall. "What took you?"

"With all due respect to my elders, I'd like to see a proto-firewall from the early eighties do any better."

"I just did. In unwieldy analog, even." Tron laughed. It hurt deliciously. "There aren't any descendants of mine in your security ranks, are there? 'Cause I'd have to have a stern word with them if there were."

"All modern security programs are derivative of the foundation Mr Bradley laid with you in a sense, sir, but rest assured that mine are no direct descendants of yours. Pardon me."

Tron blinked. The Mark 42 opened up and swallowed him whole. "Hey, what – !"

"I would like for you to fly with me, sir."

The faceplate slid shut, the HUD lit up, and Tron's eyes widened. "J.A.R.V.I.S., no – I'm not a User. I don't want to be a User."

"A passenger, then, sir. I have located Master Tony and Ms Baines, and I can take us to them."

A new kind of pain lit like a little flame in Tron's chest. "Did they find Alan-1?"

"Only one way to find out."


End file.
